INDOCHINA INTELLIGENCE RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND PLANNING STUDY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01720R001300080010-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 23, 2006
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: January 17, 1972
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2006/11/0EChl P80R01720R001300080010-5
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17 January 1972
SUBJECT: Indochina Intelligence Resource
Allocation and Planning Study
1. In March 1971, at Mr. Bronson Tweedy's suggestion, you
endorsed my convening an interagency group to survey the re-
sources that the intelligence community would have to allocate
to matters related to Indochina over the next two to five years.
NSA, State (INR), DIA, our FE Division, and the NSC staff all
designated representatives and we set to work.
2. As we debated, it became increasingly self-evident
that the essential first step in our endeavor was that of de-
termining a valid set of requirements in the shape of Indochina-
related tasks the community's components would be expected to
discharge during the period in question. Without a definitive
enumeration of tasks and responsibilities, any recommendations
relating to resource allocation would be sterile and not neces-
sarily related to the real world within which the community's
several components would have to live and work.
3. The discussions which comprised our initial phase of
effort were summarized in the attached draft memorandum, a final,
agreed version of which we were going to recommend that you, as
Chairman of USIB, forward to Dr. Kissinger, as Chairman of the
Senior Review Group. The more we debated, however, the less
likely it seemed that agreement could be reached (or, particularly,
DIA's concurrence obtained) on a requirements and tasking statement
framed by intelligence community representatives themselves.
4. At this point, and with Wayne Smith's agreement, I took
another tack -- that of asking the NSC staff representative,
Robert Sansom, to draft the requirements statement, setting the
terms of reference for our joint resource allocation planning
and attendant recommendations. It seemed to me -- and after some
private conversation, Wayne Smith agreed that it was really in-
cumbent on the NSC to tell the intelligence community what Indochina-
related capabilities the latter would be expected to maintain and
what types of information it would be expected to provide over the
time frame in question.
SECRET
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5. My thought was that once the community was given its
marching orders, as it were, we could then recommend the mix
of resources that would be required to discharge them -- i.e.,
their price tag in terms of manpower, money, and hardware such
as airplanes. If, as I privately felt would probably be the
case, the price proved a larger one than the policy levels of
government wanted to pay, then there would have to be a policy-
level decision on which element of this requirements-resources
equation was to be considered the constant and which the
variable.
6. Unfortunately, in this sphere (as in others) the White
House staff was not too effective in doing its share of the work.
Sansom's promised draft never materialized and, as you know, he
eventually went on to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Wayne Smith -- who, in all fairness, had many demands on his
time -- never got anyone else to do the required work, nor did
he get it done himself before he too left the NSC staff.
7. Shortly before Christmas, after Phil Odeen had had a
little chance to get his feet on the ground in his new incar-
nation, I went to see him and reviewed the above bidding in
private discourse, leaving with him a copy of the attached draft
memorandum as a concrete illustration of the problem. He called
me back on 8 January and we agreed to get together again on
Thursday, 13 January.
8. At our 13 January session, Mr. Odeen was most coopera-
tive. He saw the problem clearly and agreed that it urgently
needed attention. Drawdown decisions on troop and U.S. asset
levels in Indochina were being made and implemented without
systematic or careful consideration of their intelligence re-
source and capability implications. Thus, there was a real and
increasing risk that policy levels of the U.S. Government might,
at some not too distant point in the future, suddenly find them-
selves unable to secure the information they required or to
execute actions they wanted taken all as a direct but unconsidered
result of their own overall U.S. commitment decisions.
9. Mr. Odeen also saw the problem we were considering as
fitting, somehow, within the framework of the new intelligence
community reorganization -- but he was not quite sure how. He
thought the requirements portion of the exercise, at least, might
properly fall within the purview of the NSC staff group to be
headed by Mr. Andrew Marshall. Odeen himself, however, immedi-
ately noted that this would not work because of the time element.
Marshal would not be anything like up to speed for another month
or two and the task before us could not wait that long. I did
not argue the Marshall angle, but did insist that resource and
allocation planning was something the intelligence community
could best do itself and something that should not be essayed
in the first instance by persons or groups outside the community.
Mr. Odeen agreed with this. He said he wanted to mull the problem
for a short while and then lay it before Dr. Kissinger, but
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promised he would touch base with me again before taking any
further action.
10. Late on the afternoon of Friday, 14 January, Mr. Odeen
called me back to note that a new diminsion of urgency had been
added by the President's latest troop withdrawal announcement,
which (unbeknownst to either of us) was being made as we were
talking on the 13th. Given the increasing urgency, Mr. Odeen
wanted to have this whole matter taken up with you and
Dr. Kissinger either before or after the VSSG/SRG meeting set
for 1500 on Monday, 17 January.
11. After Odeen's 14 January call, I went over the bidding
with Mr. Tweedy and we both agreed we should endeavor to caucus
with you as early as possible on 17 January, so you did not get
caught off guard. This memorandum was drafted to give you the
background information pertinent to that discussion.
;; r .
George A. Carver.
Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs
Attachment:
Memo, dtd 7 May 71,
Subj: Draft Request for
Requirements Endorsement
cc: Mr. Tweedy
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